Mediation is said to occur when a causal effect of some variable X on an outcome Y is explained by some intervening variable M. The authors recommend that with small to moderate samples, bootstrap methods (B. Efron & R. Tibshirani, 1993) be used to assess mediation. Bootstrap tests are powerful because they detect that the sampling distribution of the mediated effect is skewed away from 0. They argue that R. M. Baron and D. A. Kenny's (1986) recommendation of first testing the X → Y association for statistical significance should not be a requirement when there is a priori belief that the effect size is small or suppression is a possibility. Empirical examples and computer setups for bootstrap analyses are provided.

In diary studies, people provide frequent reports on the events and experiences of their daily lives. These reports capture the particulars of experience in a way that is not possible using traditional designs. We review the types of research questions that diary methods are best equipped to answer, the main designs that can be used, current technology for obtaining diary reports, and appropriate data analysis strategies. Major recent developments include the use of electronic forms of data collection and multilevel models in data analysis. We identify several areas of research opportunities: 1. in technology, combining electronic diary reports with collateral measures such as ambulatory heart rate; 2. in measurement, switching from measures based on between-person differences to those based on within-person changes; and 3. in research questions, using diaries to (a) explain why people differ in variability rather than mean level, (b) study change processes during major events and transitions, and (c) study interpersonal processes using dyadic and group diary methods.

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This article presents a framework for studying personality in the stress process. The framework specifies that personality may affect both exposure and reactivity to stressful events and that both processes may explain how personality affects health and psychological outcomes. The framework also specifies that personality differences in reactivity may be due to differential choice of coping efforts and differential effectiveness of those efforts. In a 14-day daily study of 94 students, this framework was used to analyze the links among neuroticism, daily interpersonal conflicts, coping with conflicts, and distress. Results showed that high-neuroticism participants had greater exposure and reactivity to conflicts. Furthermore, high- and low-neuroticism participants differed both in their choice of coping efforts and in the effectiveness of those efforts, a possibility not considered in previous models of personality in the stress process.

Although there is abundant evidence that perceived availability of support buffers the effects of stressors on mental health, the relatively meager research on support transactions has failed to show an association between actual receipt of support and adjustment to stressors. The authors examined a possible explanation for this inconsistency, that awareness of receiving support entails an emotional cost and that the most effective support is unnoticed by the recipient. Using data from a daily diary study of support provision and receipt in couples, the authors show that many transactions reported by supporters are not reported by recipients. They also show that these invisible support transactions promote adjustment to a major stressor.

This article examines the influence of daily stressors on mental health in a community sample. Ss were 166 married couples who completed diaries each day for 6 weeks. In pooled within-person analyses, daily stressors explained up to 20% of the variance in mood. Interpersonal conflicts were by far the most distressing events. Furthermore, when stressors occurred on a series of days, emotional habituation occurred by the second day for almost all events except interpersonal conflicts. Contrary to certain theoretical accounts, multiple stressors on the same day did not exacerbate one another's effects; rather, an emotional plateau occurred. Finally, on days following a stressful event, mood was better than it would have been if the stressor had not happened. These results reveal the complex emotional effects of daily stressors, and in particular, they suggest that future investigations should focus primarily on interpersonal conflicts.In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that minor, everyday stressors influence health and psychological wellbeing (DeLongis, Coyne, Dakof, Folkman, & Lazarus, 1982;Eckenrode, 1984;Kanner, Coyne, Schaefer, & Lazarus, 1981). As a result, there has been a reorientation in stress research from a nearly exclusive emphasis on major events to an appreciation of the significance of minor environmental stressors. These minor stressors (e.g., work deadlines, marital arguments) are an important focus of research because they provide a means of describing the stressful features of enduring relationships (e.g., spouse, friend) and roles (e.g., worker, student).Despite the growing research interest in minor stressors, work to date has implicitly assumed that all minor stressors are equivalent. This is exemplified by the almost universal practice of aggregating these stressors into a summary measure for analytic purposes. Thus, with one notable exception (Stone, 1987), ~ there have been no studies of the differential effects of minor stressors on health and well-being. This type of aggregation may obscure important variation in the microprocesses underlying psychological well-being. Previous studies of major stressors have demonstrated that stressor disaggregation reveals important variability in effects (e.g., Eckenrode & Gore, 1981;Kessler & McLeod, 1984). Similarly, analyses of coping proAuthors' names are listed alphabetically. This research was supported by Merit Award I-MOI-MH42714, Research Scientist Development Award I-KO1-MH00507, Research Grants 2-ROI-MH41135 and 1-RO 1-MH42714, and Training Grant 5 T32-MH 16806, all from the National Institute of Mental Health.We thank Steve Hopkins for research assistance and James Coyne, John Eckenrode, Elaine Wethington, and Camille Wortman for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.Niall Bolger is now at the University of Denver. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ronaid C. Kessler, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106-1248. 808cesses show strong variability in res...

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The recent growth in diary and experience sampling research has increased research attention on how people change over time in natural settings. Often however, the measures in these studies were originally developed for studying between-person differences, and their sensitivity to withinperson changes is usually unknown. Using a Generalizability Theory framework, the authors illustrate a procedure for developing reliable measures of change using a version of the Profile of Mood States (POMS; McNair, Lorr, & Droppleman, 1992) shortened for diary studies. Analyzing two data sets, one composed of 35 daily reports from 68 persons experiencing a stressful examination and another composed of daily reports from 164 persons over a typical 28-day period, we demonstrate that three-item measures of anxious mood, depressed mood, anger, fatigue, and vigor have appropriate reliability to detect within-person change processes.Keywords diary studies; daily mood; within; person change; reliability; Generalizability Theory Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to James A. Cranford, Addiction Research Center and Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, 2025 Traverwood Drive, Suite A, Ann Arbor, MI 48105-2194; e-mail: jcranfor@med.umich.edu; Patrick E. Shrout, 6 Washington Place, Mail Room 416b, Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, 10003; e-mail: pat.shrout@nyu.edu; or Niall Bolger, 406 Schermerhorn Hall, 1190 Amsterdam Avenue, Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027; e-mail: nb2229@columbia.edu. James A. Cranford, Addiction Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan; Patrick E. Shrout and Masumi Iida, Department of Psychology, New York University; Eshkol Rafaeli, Psychology Department, Barnard College, Columbia University; Tiffany Yip, Department of Psychology, Fordham University; Niall Bolger, Department of Psychology, Columbia University. 2 In principle, it is possible to estimate the between-person reliability coefficient for mood by averaging a randomly selected set of days (R KR ). Because this is not a design that has obvious advantages, the generalizability coefficient is not presented here, but it is R KR available from the authors on request. NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptPers Soc Psychol Bull. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2008 June 6. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptDaily diary designs are increasingly recommended for studying dynamic psychological processes such as emotional states, self-regulation, and appraisals of social situations (Bolger, Davis, & Rafaeli, 2003;. They have the potential to provide high-resolution information about evolving psychological processes, and they minimize retrospection artifacts and biases. Yet, they are not without their own methodological difficulties . Diary studies impose substantial demands on participants, and the burden imposed by protocols that require frequent self-reports may lead to biases in samples of participa...